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Topic: Last movie you watched

The last few weeks I've been catching up some old films that I hadn't got around to seeing. A few of them have been pleasantly surprising, such that I wonder why I hadn't got around to seeing them before.

Just now for instance I finished watching a Sigourney Weaver film called Death and the Maiden. Made in 1994 by Roman Polanski the story takes place in a single night (in almost real time) and is a fascinating, brilliantly acted drama about a woman who believes she has met one of the men who tortured her many years before. It's extremely well written, and has just 3 actors and feels very much like a play - which isn't surprising since it is based on one of the same name written Ariel Dorfman.

I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it. Don't do what I did and poo poo it for years.

Likewise, I saw Mystic River the other day, which isn't that old admitedly but I somehow had convinced myself not to bother watching it. Directed by Clint Eastwood, it's got a great cast with Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne and is... sobering to say the least.

So what have you watched recently? Anyone else stumbled upon some old gems that's made you sit up and pay attention?

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

Re: Last movie you watched

Well i just finished Queen of The Damned from 2002. And while admittedly not perfect, it was damn good Vampire movie. I had a different taste to it than most Vampire flicks, much more reflective on the consequences of eternal life while still keeping the punk/goth/rock vibe that Blade introduced. It was really fun! If you're in the mood for a Blade-esque, Vampire flick, definitly recommended.

EDIT: Just finished Hackers, I know I'm the last one on this paticular train, so I'll just say I loved it!

(And oooooooh my gods, can you say Angelina Jolie was hot?)

EDIT2: Just finished eXsiteZ...pretty sure I'm last on the bandwagon on this one too. But what a strange odd little wonderful movie. I enjoyed that thoroughly.

Re: Last movie you watched

That's one I've been meaning to watch for a while - Long Kiss Goodnight, and speaking of Geena Davis I do not recall anything from Cutthroat Island so going to try and watch that again. Usually I can at least remember bits and pieces from old films, so I'm kinda bemused by the total blank I'm having.

Not seen They Live. What sort of movie is it, horror? Is that the one with the "I'm here to kick ass and chew gum" line?

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

Re: Last movie you watched

Yeah, that's the one. It's a silly movie that knows what it is and has fun with it. The last "classic" Carpenter film, really, as the movies from the 90's are a much more mixed bag. His previous film, Prince of Darkness, is one of my all time favorites and one of the few horror movies where the idea itself is fun.

Re: Last movie you watched

Just finished watching Dead Man (Johnny Depp - directed by Jim Jarmusch). Forgot how much i like that film.

The score is interesting too.. it's pretty minimal. I'd heard that Neil Young watched the movie 2 times in a row, then on the 3rd, just started playing along with it.. it sorta feels off the cuff, but i love the tone and slight delay he uses on his guitar.

Re: Last movie you watched

redxavier wrote:

That's one I've been meaning to watch for a while - Long Kiss Goodnight, and speaking of Geena Davis I do not recall anything from Cutthroat Island so going to try and watch that again. Usually I can at least remember bits and pieces from old films, so I'm kinda bemused by the total blank I'm having.

Not seen They Live. What sort of movie is it, horror? Is that the one with the "I'm here to kick ass and chew gum" line?

Cutthroat Island is lots of fun, I still don't know why it wasn't a hit. Frank Langella was an excellent villain.

They Live isn't really horror, it's more sci-fi. The only scary thing is how relevant the film still feels, even though it was born of Reaganomics.

Invid wrote:

Yeah, that's the one. It's a silly movie that knows what it is and has fun with it. The last "classic" Carpenter film, really, as the movies from the 90's are a much more mixed bag. His previous film, Prince of Darkness, is one of my all time favorites and one of the few horror movies where the idea itself is fun.

I'm sure they had a blast with They Live. Certain movies just give off a vibe like the folks working on it were really enjoying themselves. Prince of Darkness is heavy on the atmosphere and definitely something that requires multiple views.

His 90s movies, were good but nowhere near as good as his previous movies. Memoirs of an Invisible Man is very entertaining and I'm not even a fan of Chevy Chase. I enjoyed Vampires but it could have been better. Escape from LA is ok but it's too goofy for it's own good. I may have to watch it again, I haven't seen it in years. Village of the Damned is the only film of his that I flat out don't like.

Re: Last movie you watched

Yeah, I probably like Never more than something like Diamonds are Forever. It's a remake of Thunderball and isn't 'technically' a Bond film.

Saw Transformers 3 on the weekend. What a fucking trainwreck, one of the worst proper movies I've ever seen. It's nonsensical, stupid gibberish with no redeeming feature. I am flabbergasted as to how the director of Bad Boys, The Rock and Armaggeddon seems apparently incapable to telling a coherent story. The acting is atrociously over the top, with almost everyone trying to outdo John Turturro in his "how I can turn this character into a stupid annoying cartoon" approach to his role. John Malkovich, Alan Tudyck, that chinese guy from Community and Hangover, McDreamy from Grey's Anatomy, Frances McDormand! Why the hell are these guys appearing in the movie?

Again, the story is convulated and confusing in all the wrong ways. And once a-fucking-gain the climax is a clusterfuck of bad editing.

The only good thing about this movie is that it will net Paramount the funding for several fantastic movies in the next few years.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

Re: Last movie you watched

@Zarban re: Salt - you saw the Directors Cut, right ?!

Last film I saw was Nine Dead, the Melissa Joan Heart(?) starring Saw (ish, but not really) film which begins with 9 people handcuffed in a room. (from ages ago) After the quick realisation that this is a poor-poor film (when Melissa isn't speaking she kinda goes into hibernation mode) you might think "what the hell, I'll stick it out to see what connects them all and see if I can guess the twist at the end". I say, don't, just don't. The payoff ain't worth it and it is another of those movies with an unnecessary open ending (damn them).

re: They Live - starring my hero Rowdy Roddy Piper - isn't this the movie with the infamous 28min(ish) fistycuff fight that ain't really up to much ?

Re: Last movie you watched

If it counts when you try to watch a film, then give up through sheer boredom after an hour, I'll mention Sucker Punch, which was showing on a flight I took on Friday evening.

Now, I didn't make it to the conclusion, but it seemed to me as if someone had taken the ending of Brazil, and padded it out with about seventeen hours of boss fights, skimpy clothing and miscellaneous other 14-year-old-boy dreams. Some of the visuals looked quite good, but if I wanted to stare at visuals for two hours in want of a story, I'd just run the iTunes Visualizer and tape my nose to the screen.

It could be the case that I've foregone a really compelling narrative by not bothering to find out what the hell happened to a bunch of, let's call them, characters that I didn't give a monkey's about bouncing around inside Scott Glenn's retirement plan, but I think I'll take the risk of never finding out.

Re: Last movie you watched

As mentioned above the story is a mess, there is some spectacularly bad dialogue, and it's even more "America, Fuck Yeah!" than Team America. That said I couldn't help watching this film and thinking that Bay was being a little ironic. It's bad in a way that Uwe Boll films are bad, he knows he's making schlock and that it's exactly what his audience wants.

At the end of the day all Transformers media exists to promote the toy lines; the cartoon series and the films are just there to drive sales. From that perspective, the film works. It's dumb and explodey, but the target audience are tweens; what do you want, Shakespeare?

Re: Last movie you watched

Uwe Boll doesn't think his films are bad. He takes his craft very seriously and gets very upset if you question it. So does Michael Bay.

And yes, I want Shakespeare. Shakespeare is good, Michael Bay is bad. I would prefer good to bad.

But even Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare in the way you're using the term. Shakespeare used characters and material that he didn't create. He wrote for a paycheck. He threw in plenty of blood and sex because he knew that's what the crowds wanted and because he knew that's how he would get his next gig. He wrote fart jokes.

But in all of that, he still wrote complex and human characters who were motivated by desires and took action based on those desires (or didn't, in the case of Hamlet). Their actions make sense, given what they want and the situation they find themselves in. The story progresses logically and consistently to communicate some kind of theme.

He was "Shakespeare" and Michael Bay at the same time. That's why he's William Fucking Shakespeare.

Re: Last movie you watched

While I only get sardonic enjoyment of Michael Bay's work, if you want "William Fucking Shakespeare" don't watch a film about gigantic killer robots by a film maker who has a long history of valuing style over substance. QED.

Re: Last movie you watched

The problem is that relative to the number of "films about gigantic killer robots by a film maker who has a long history of valuing style over substance", "William Fucking Shakespeare"'s are virtually non exsistant.

Re: Last movie you watched

FixedR6 wrote:

At the end of the day all Transformers media exists to promote the toy lines; the cartoon series and the films are just there to drive sales. From that perspective, the film works. It's dumb and explodey, but the target audience are tweens; what do you want, Shakespeare?

It's interesting here to look at the anime Mobil Suit Gundam. Bandai in 1979 told some animators, "give us a 30 minute a week commercial for robot toys". What they came up with was a rather serious anti-war show that far transcended the intentions of those paying the bills. Not perfect, no, but damn it they TRIED. A show aimed at 10 year olds with a teen lead piloting a giant fucking robot was treated as a serious war story. You CAN do both.

There were fires, flaming trucks, high speed chases, swords, squibs, lots of guns, the thing where Indy goes under the truck, horrible production accidents making head molds out of industrial plaster instead of dental plaster (including blind scribbling of a note that read HOSPITAL) and a fucking submarine.